The copyright bill, known as DADVSI, was voted on June 30 by the French Parliament. The following text lists some of the known problems of DADVSI, including references to the articles in the bill.

Paris, 30 june 2006,

The French Parliament has voted Friday, June 30th 2006 to approve the DRM bill called DADVSI (« droit d'auteur et droits voisins dans la société de l'information »). This bill was voted by raised hands instead of the electronic voting system normally used for solemn votes of that kind. This law is both unacceptable and unenforceable. The EUCD.INFO initiative publicly notes that the government has gone to the furthest in denying democracy, by having the bill finally voted on Friday, June 30, eve of the parliamentary recess. See « What does the new French copyright bill do ? » for a list of some of the known problems of DADVSI, including references to the articles in the bill.

On Friday, June 9th 2006 at 3.30pm, Richard Stallman led a delegation composed by Frédéric Couchet (Free Software Foundation France) and Christophe Espern (EUCD.INFO initiative) to meet the French Prime minister. The delegation wanted to talk about the French DRM bill and give the Prime Minister a roll of paper containing the names of the 165,000 individual signatures and 1000 collective signatures (among which those of more than 200 companies such as Sun Microsystems) to the EUCD.INFO petition. Richard Stallman and his friends were held at bay by the Chief of security.

MARCH FOR DIGITAL FREEDOMS, AGAINST DRMs AND AGAINST THE DADVSI LAW

We, French citizens, reject the electronic restrictions on cultural works which was established by the law on authors' rights (DADVSI law). This law, via the legislation of digital rights management (DRM) devices, threaten the right to fair use, innovation, individual freedoms and the the durability of works.

Works which we buy should be able to be viewed anytime, anywhere, with the equipment and the software of one's choosing, including free software. We want, for instance, to be able to lend music which we like, and to hand it down to our children.

We refuse to accept any law that considers hackers and lovers of culture as offenders.

We are calling for a demonstration against both DRMs and the DADVSI law on Sunday the 7th of May at the Place de la Bastille in Paris at 2 pm with the following guiding principles:

YES to authors' rights
NO to the DADVSI law
NO to the death of fair use
NO to digital rights management (DRM)
NO to threats to free software in France
YES to interoperability
YES to cultural diversity

This is an initiative of: stopDRM, APRIL, the Audionautes, dadaprod.org, EUCD.info, FFII.fr, Framasoft, FSF France, musique-libre.org, the ODEBI league.

If you are an association or an organization and if you wish to be a cosigner of the call/appeal, contact stopdrm AT gmail.com

See the complete list of supports on StopDRM web site

The French Senate will consider a major revision to its copyright law (the "DADVSI" law) on May 4th, 9th and 10th. This law will implement the EUCD (the European equivalent of the DMCA) and change French author's rights and copright. It was voted by the first chamber on Feb 21st. This will be the final parliamentary step of the examination process, as a shortened "emergency procedure" was called on such a crucial subject.

A compilation of quotes about about the french draft copyright law.

March, 27th, 2006

A good comment found at the end of "How France is saving civilization" (Wired)

If the law is voted (it still has to approved by the Senat and the Conseil Constitutionnel), the result is :

• making P2P illegal
• the end of private copy : it will be illegal to copy or rip music or films I have bought. That means I can't have a disc at home and another in the car. I won't either be able to transfer it to my Digital Audio Player. It's also the end of webradios in France.
• DRMs become the standard

This all sounds great doesn't it ? Say goodbye to alternative cultural sources of information. The Majors were afraid of loosing their power, not being able to control these alternative sources. For the first time, humanity has at last got a universal media to share information. We are able discover artists we'd never hear of otherwise. But the Majors don't control this media. And what does France do ? Puts it's pants down and says "OK, we're locking it all down, and here are the keys". Fantastic. The ONLY concession the government has accepted is interoperability

Following a public email from Gerald (FFII France) about the french project law related to copyright in the digital era (known as DADVSI).

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Debates on the 1st chamber of French Parliament (National Assembly) have ended last night at 4:00am. Now there should be a vote on the text amended next Tuesday. Then the text will go to the 2nd chamber (Senate). And a comittee of 7 politians of each chamber will finalize the text in a kind of conciliation procedure.

Results of amendments voted by National Assembly is very mixed.

You can help us by writing to the President and Prime Minister of the French Republic.

An amendment to the proposed DADVSI bill has the aim of making criminal counterfeiting out of publication, distribution and promotion of all software susceptible to being used to open up data protected by author's right and not integrating a method of controlling and tracking private usage (technical measure). All software permitting downloads is concerned, such as certain instant messaging software (chat) and all server software (P2P, HTTP, FTP, SSH). This surrealist amendment has been redirected from its start by Vivendi Universal, then reworked by many members of the Sirinelli commission, a commission of the High Council of Literary and Artistic Property CSPLA.

Creating your own compilations from a CD, extracting your favourite piece of music to listen to it on your computer, transfering it on a MP3 player, lending a CD to a friend, reading a DVD with free software or duplicating it to be able to enjoy it at home and in your country house : many common practices, perfectly legal, which the French government plans to forbid in fact. The copyright and neighbouring rights in the information society bill (DADVSI) (n°1206) which the French government will try to force through in the coming weeks by using an emergency procedure, actually legitimates the technical devices installed by CD and DVD editors and producers to control their use. And above all, the bill plans criminal penalty against people who would dare to remove those.

English readers : UPDATE : dedicated section opened France is about to get the worst copyright law in Europe. A dedicated section with detailled materials in English will be opened tomorrow. For the moment you can read Cory's post about the DADVSI bill and follow its trackbacks.

The final version of this report should be ratified by the Sirinelli Commission on November 18th and adopted during the next plenary session of the Conseil Supérieur de la Propriété Littéraire et Artistique CSPLA, High Council of Literary and Artistic Property) on December 7th. The Sirinelli Commission had to ponder, among other things the issues surrounding the possible responsibility of some intermediary parties who would incite counterfeiting in either one of the following ways: providing means, giving information on means and methods, or advocating. Among other things, this report aims to support the most controversial points of the DADVSI bill and the business majors' amendments.